Blue Bugle: Mobile, Desktop & Web Technologies

Today, it’s not enough to have a website display well on desktop browsers alone. You have to be able to show your website to millions of users that browse with a mobile phone or a tablet. In order to see if the website displays well in all those devices, there are certain tools available. Mobile devices in general do not support Flash, JavaScript, ActionScript, ActiveX, etc. You should do away with such embedded objects on the mobile version of your site. The mobile testing tools will tell you which part of the website doesn’t render well. In this article, let’s look at some of these testing tools. 1. Adobe Device Central Adobe Device Central  debuted with the Creative Suite version 3. This application runs from your desktop and allows you to test a lot of mobile devices to see the compatibility of your website on them. Device Central provides a huge list of mobile devices offered for testing that can be updated online. It automatically communicates with the server ...

Yesterday at Berlin Radio Show, as expected, Samsung released its biggest smartphone, a tablet-cum-smartphone or ‘phablet’ as it’s popularly known now, Galaxy Note II . Among other things that Samsung announced yesterday there is ATIV S , the world’s first smartphone running Windows 8 mobile OS . Galaxy Note II comes with slight advancements to the previous version. Let’s check it out here. Comparison Between Note & Note II Here’s a table comparing the features of the new Note with the previous one. Feature Galaxy Note Galaxy Note II Display Super AMOLED, 16m colors; 800x1280 pixels resolution; 5.3 inches (285 ppi) Super AMOLED, 16 m colors; 720x1280 pixels, 5.5 inches (267 ppi) Processor Dual-core 1.4 GHz, ARM Cortex A9 Quad-core 1.6 GHz; ARM Cortex A9 Memory 2GB RAM; Internal storage: 16/32/64 GB; MicroSD: up to 32 GB MicroSD up to 32 GB; Internal: 16/32 GB; 1GB RAM Came...

Apple’s iOS is one of the most popular mobile operating systems; it powers Apple’s popular devices, iPhone and iPad. The operating system was first released in 2007, around the time Google’s Android mobile platform was also released. Years went by and both iOS and Android have developed . Now, Android is in its fifth major version with Jelly Bean, and iOS is at version 6, which will power iPhone 5 . There are a number of features on iOS that were inspired from Android. Let’s look at some of them. 1. The Notification Center The idea of a centralized notification feature probably came about first in Facebook. Android is the first mobile operating system that has incorporated a feature called Notification Bar. This is the top bar on any Android device that has all the information about the phone (battery status, range, missed call and message information, Bluetooth status, etc.) This bar could be brought down with a thumb gesture to see more information about each icon. In the...

You may have got the news about Apple’s historical win over Samsung  in the recent lawsuit concerning infringement of iPhone’s design patents. People have been speculating ever since about a possible legal battle between Apple and Google regarding features in their mobile operating systems, iOS and Android respectively. In the meanwhile, Motorola of Google filed a patent lawsuit against Apple (yes!) But we are not dealing with that in here. Apple’s former CEO, deceased Steve Jobs had been talking ferociously about Android ever since it had made its appearance. It’s his opinion that Android is an outright copy of iOS and he will do anything in his power to bring it down; the battle could go ‘thermonuclear’ if it was up to him. Here's a comparison of iOS and Android . Apple had been very quiet and discreet about this issue even after the release of several devices and new versions of iOS and Android. But now, Apple picked a fight with Samsung regarding some design issues some ...

image credit to ZDNet Dropbox  is a popular service for cloud storage . The service helps you sync your files into any platform or device with the help of a client-side software application that you can download and install on all major desktop and mobile operating systems. The most important criterion of any cloud storage service is its security. You are probably going to use the cloud service to store some very important files related to your business. You naturally need high level of security for such classified data. The good news is that Dropbox has enabled two-step verification to its file storage service, making the service extremely secure. What Is Two-Step Verification Two-Step authentication can add security to any web-based service that you access from your client computer. Especially in services like online file storage, cloud computing, and email, you have to have better security. We have seen people getting their accounts hacked into even after using str...

For designers and painters, a photo editing application with myriad features is essential. It’s a painter’s dream if the application is free and has amazing precision. It’s very difficult to find an application capable of editing and touching up images with such features as found in the likes of Adobe Photoshop. In this article, you will find seven great photo editing applications that come without a price tag. 1. The GIMP The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)  is a free open source application available for all the desktop operating systems—Linux, Apple Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Sun OpenSolaris, and FreeBSD. The GIMP website is non-profit and the application development is done with the help of volunteering developers from around the world. Ooh! What a look! Thanks to GIMP for this image Features available in the GIMP would make it more desirable than paid applications for image editing out there. The GIMP has all the tools that you need for painting—brushes ...

In California, yesterday Apple won the lawsuit against Samsung as the court ordered Samsung to pay 1.05 billion US dollars in damages. This is another reason to enjoy for Apple, which has become the most valued company in the history of all businesses recently. This lawsuit is very significant in the cell phone market today. This court case is something that we have been looking forward to for a long time. Android-based Samsung devices (tablets and smartphones) have been competing severely with iPhone and iPad. Consumers know the quality and features available in the devices by both of these companies. However, the future may be significantly different for Samsung with this verdict. The Beginning of the Lawsuit Last year (2011 April) Apple started its legal battle against Samsung with a demand for 2.5 billion dollars toward reparation. The spat between these two stalwarts in the mobile market was regarding infringement of Apple’s design patents. Look at the image below, published ...

Google’s popular home page service, iGoogle will be retired on November 1st, 2013. That’s a little over a year of managing your home page through this service. It came as a great disappointment to me since I had been using the service for a long time. I have a nice home page set up in iGoogle with news from BBC, CNN, and others; my calendar; a widget for time management; topic-specific news on technology, stock quotes, weather; and some other interesting stuff. It was a page that I woke up to for many days. It seems obvious that the popularity of home page services has been coming down in the recent years; another popular service in this arena, Netvibes has turned into something else entirely. I could have turned my attention to Netvibes after they retire iGoogle, but that won’t happen now. I will miss Google’s home page, and before that I want to find out another portal service that I could love as I do iGoogle. In search for one, I found these great services which can replace iG...

Microsoft has rebranded their popular Hotmail service to Outlook.com. As you know, for several years Yahoo.com and Hotmail were extremely popular email services. Along came then, Gmail, and with huge free online storage it swept up the users from both of the other email services. Strong fan following of Gmail also washed away other smaller email services. Even Facebook’s email service was not a match to the mighty Gmail. An important thing to note here is that ironically enough, Hotmail still has the highest number of users followed by Gmail and Yahoo mail, although the user base of Hotmail contains a lot of inactive and secondary email accounts. Now, everybody is talking about Outlook.com and whether it will be a sizable competitor to Gmail. In this article, let’s do a rematch between Microsoft and Google email services. Security One of the most important aspects of an email service is its security. You don’t want snooping eyes on your email conversations. As far as secur...

Apple has become the most valued company in the history of business with a valuation of 624 billion US dollars. At this time, its most prestigious and most revenue-generating product, the Apple iPhone is also expected to get a new facelift. Reports and tweets are flying all around us with comments and speculations about the new iPhone. There are leaked photos of iPhone 5 that show a screen much larger than the current 3.5 inch belonging to 4S. The new phones that are expected to be released within a month’s time include the new iPhone as well as Samsung’s highly popular Galaxy Note’s second version, Galaxy Note 2 (expected release date: Aug 29). iPhone is expected to be released in September (most of the rumors indicate possible unveiling on or before 21st). In terms of device hardware, iPhone 5 will have excellent features. Expected ones include larger, thinner display with immensely higher resolution; possible support for NFC (Near Field Communication technology) ; support for...

If you own an Android phone , your biggest worry probably is about the battery power. Android phones and tablets come with huge screens and amazing resolutions; they run feature-rich apps that you could enjoy for hours. People want to play games, watch videos, and listen to tracks on the move. They want to talk to their loved ones for hours, and at free time, want to play with their phones. Such mobile geeks want continued power from the battery that comes with their phones. For instance, Samsung Galaxy S3 comes with a 2100 mAh battery supposedly giving 590 hours standby time. Apple iPhone 4S comes with 1432 mAh Lithium Polymer battery, and many people still say it runs longer than Galaxy S3. In fact looking at the complaints that people make about Android devices, the highest number of comments are about their battery power. People want long-lasting batteries. They don’t appreciate temporary solutions like portable batteries or higher mAh third-party batteries that come with t...